this, likewise, is not fact: the
conferences broke up in February, 1569: Nicholas Hubert was not hanged
till August thereafter, and his dying confession, as Mr. Hume calls it,
is only dated the 10th of that month. How, then, can this gentleman
gravely tell us, that this confession was judicially given in, and ought
to have been, at that very time, canvassed by queen Mary and her
commissioners? Such positive assertions, apparently contrary to fact,
are unworthy the character of an historian, and may, very justly, render
his decision, with respect to evidences of a higher nature, very
dubious. In answer, then, to Mr. Hume: As the queen's accusers did not
choose to produce this material witness, Paris, whom they had alive and
in their hands, nor any declaration or confession, from him, at the
critical and proper time for having it canvassed by the queen, I
apprehend our author's conclusion may fairly be used against himself;
that it is in vain, at present, to support the improbabilities and
absurdities in a confession, taken in a clandestine way, nobody knows
how, and produced, after Paris's death, by nobody knows whom, and, from
every appearance, destitute of every formality, requisite and common to
such sort of evidence: for these reasons, I am under no sort of
hesitation to give sentence against Nicholas Hubert's confession, as a
gross imposture and forgery."

The state of the evidence relating to the letters is this:

Morton affirms, that they were taken in the hands of Dalgleish. Hie
examination of Dalgleish is still extant, and he appears never to have
been once interrogated concerning the letters.

Morton and Murray affirm, that they were written by the queen's hand;
they were carefully concealed from Mary and her commissioners, and were
never collated by one man, who could desire to disprove them.

Several of the incidents mentioned in the letters are confirmed by the
oath of Crawfurd, one of Lennox's defendants, and some of the incidents
are so minute, as that they could scarcely be thought on by a forger.
Crawfurd's testimony is not without suspicion. Whoever practises
forgery, endeavours to make truth the vehicle of falsehood.

Of a prince's life very minute incidents are known; and if any are too
slight to be remarked, they may be safely feigned, for they are,
likewise, too slight to be contradicted. But there are still more
reasons for doubting the genuineness of these letters. They had no date
of time o